Hiring the right accountant
When I meet a business owner operating at a successful $10 million in revenue, they often mention, “My CPA”… I immediately know that CEO/Entrepreneur is referring to their Tax CPA. That is because one thing that all Entrepreneurs have in common is that they must file a tax return. So, from the day they started up their company, their “trusted advisor” and “accountant” has been their Tax CPA. Not a knock on my Tax CPA friends, but there is a HUGE difference between a Tax CPA vs. a Managerial Accountant CPA that is a Controller, CFO or Staff accountant who knows U.S. GAAP, does financial reporting, and has managed a business. I will not get into the differences, you can read about them here.
The Problem? – “I Can’t afford a Controller, or Accountant”
When I speak to business owners about hiring a Controller or an Accountant, I am not referring to a Bookkeeper. Bookkeeping is NOT Accounting. Bookkeepers do NOT apply Accounting Principles to the work they do. That is because most bookkeepers are not Accountants, they do not have a 4-year degree in Accounting, and they do not know U.S. GAAP, and they are never CPAs. Therefore, Bookkeepers do not properly represent the company on the balance sheet. A balance sheet and profit and loss that do not apply U.S. GAAP principals are a useless tool to manage a business because they are not correct.
The problem is that a company of $10 million or less in revenue cannot afford a degreed accountant, much less a controller or CFO. I have seen this repeatedly all over the U.S.A. Up until now, we have struggled in our own firm to provide quality service with qualified accountants that know what they are doing with these small companies. That is because the market for a qualified accountant is strong, and a good accountant makes a good salary. These companies of $10mm and lower revenue really DO need these types of professionals, but they simply can’t afford it. These companies need timely U.S. GAAP financial reporting, cash flow forecasting, budgeting. They need to get loans and deal with other potential investors. A qualified accountant that deals with all of this is simply not affordable in the traditional sense to a small business. And the existing companies that say they provide affordable outsourced accounting are really NOT providing a solution.
I am convinced that the current market (and it’s been this way for 25 years) and future will not allow us to bridge this gap with U.S. wages and small company needs.
The Solution
I have seen several companies try different things to solve the problem for small companies, such as “online accountants”, outsourcing to Asia, different variations of online remote bookkeepers. I have also seen a company of software developers offer accounting services but all they were really doing was extracting data from Quickbooks and creating pretty graphs that were meaningless. No true support from a qualified staff of degreed accountants.
All of the current services I studied that provided outsourced accounting are not providing what the company really needs.
With technology and our network of professionals located in North America, we have developed a business model that allows companies of $10 mm in revenue and less to hire qualified degreed accountants and with accounting designations to provide quality professional accounting services. All of this is managed and supervised out of our offices in Sugar Land, Texas. And all of this at a fraction of the cost of hiring a qualified accountant.
If you want to learn more about hiring the right accountant and our outsourced accounting services at a fraction of the cost, please contact me directly.
Dan Corredor
dcorredor@strategiccfo.com
